Four Sugars
by MyNovember
Summary: There's a difference between friends and lovers, but hell if he can remember what it is and they were never really that close, anyway.


To anyone who still remembers that In Limbo still exists...ahhhummmyeah I really have no excuse but there is vague explanation/ass kissing in my profile if you're interested.

Disclaimer: This is rated for language and overly-poetic adult situations. Yeah.

**Four Sugars**

There's a difference between friends and lovers, but hell if he can remember what is is and they were never really that close, anyway.

* * *

So when it starts, he's an adult and she's an adult and that's all it is.

They don't really have much in common - well, they don't have anything in common - but they do share a lot of cups of coffee when the brats aren't around and he's managed to sit still long enough to stay in the mansion. She always seems to be around; he thinks of telling her she needs to get out more, but it's an argument he doesn't need if she takes it the wrong way and she probably will. People always do.

She's quiet most of the time and he's thankful that she doesn't try to force conversation; he's known those contemplative, serene types before, and while it's all well and good when they're just staring off into space, once they start talking that shit tends to get on his nerves pretty quick.

He likes her well enough, or at least he doesn't dislike her, and that's already a huge improvement over how he feels about most people. She doesn't seem to mind him much, either, but he doesn't think she lets a whole lot get under her skin. Not really. Their silences aren't awkward and they generally only argue under high-pressure situations (which really can't be helped). He guesses he considers her more friend that not, but that doesn't mean much.

That's it, For a long time, that's it.

* * *

One day it occurs to him that she's beautiful, and it's a simple enough observation. Like her tentative friendship, it has little consequence so far as his own life is concerned; for him, sex is a rarity, relationships are an impossibility, and he genuinely does not want either thing from her.

Her hair falls in thick layers like a curtain around her face (when she doesn't pull it back in that stupid bandanna) and the color is a rich contrast against her skin. Her eyes are almond-shaped, heavy-lidded and thick-lashed; her cheekbones are high. And that particular shade of red she sometimes wears as lipstick compliments her well. She looks a little like she's been painted by a conscientious, maybe slightly pretentious artist. Basically.

There's no revelation of affection or even attraction. The silences still aren't awkward and she still remembers how he takes his coffee. So really, who gives a shit what the lady looks like?

* * *

Okay, okay, so maybe it doesn't matter for a long time, but then it kind of...does. Now the whole painting thing doesn't make any sense, because he can't think of any adjectives for her eyes but piercing, or maybe shiver-inducing on his weak days. Now it doesn't matter how her hair frames her face, not when he's so busy picturing tangling his fingers in it 'til he loses them - 'til he loses himself in her.

And really, who cares if that shade of lipstick compliments her fucking _skin tone_ when it also compliments the full, cupid's bow shape of her mouth?

Also, the majesty of her heavy eyelids and high cheekbones and unblemished mocha skin no longer makes him halfway admire the artistic beauty of her - more, it makes him want to take her down a peg.

Kind of.

Not really.

Nothing perverse or humiliating, anyway. He just...he just wants to know if having her face distorted in some strong emotion (preferably as the result of some strenuous physical activity) would make her seem more _real_. Less otherworldly, or something.

But this all happens slowly, like something unfurling within him, and it's pretty easy to deal with since it comes in stages. Anyway, most of the time his thoughts and everyone else's are engaged in more pressing matters than sex. Maybe once in a while, toward the end, he acts a little surlier than usual toward her, but it's doubtful she even notices.

Then one day they pass each other by and he catches a scent that is fitting but not even a little logical, and in addition to wondering how the hell he could have missed it before he gives her such a look of angry incredulity that she must think she's wronged him in a past life, or maybe even scuffed his bike.

She smells like _rain._

The closest thing to describe his thought process after that point would probably be, 'Seriously, what the _fuck?_'

* * *

The idea that sticking two people in a house together with nothing in common other than legality (age-wise, anyway) and a mutual easiness on the eyes would result in an inability to be "just friends" is...well, it's a little depressing.

Fortunately, that's not always the case.

It just happens to be that way for these two.

* * *

Call it animal instinct or wishful thinking or whatever you want, but at some point he realizes that she wants him, too. She's collected as she ever was and she should give nothing away, but somehow he feels it on her, and he thinks she knows he does. So the question becomes: Does she know it's mutual?

No, scratch that - the question becomes: Even if she does, what the hell do they do about it?

Nothing, that's what. Abso-friggin'-lutely nothing. The complications it could imply are enough to give him a headache. But to avoid each other would be to acknowledge that something exists, and even if it's only to themselves it feels just as dangerous.

So everything goes the same way it always has except that he drives 'til he can hardly remember which way is home and gets into drunken brawls without being drunk, hits like he doesn't have the upper hand.

One night they happen to be going to their rooms at the same time and they each pause at their doorways. He doesn't look at her and he doesn't think she looks at him.

The moment lasts forever and a damned day, and then he hears her walk into her room and close the door.

He does the same.

* * *

He doesn't know why, since it's just as likely to be her doing as any natural occurrence, but he goes to the roof when he sees the storm brewing. Before he can even think to scan the sky for her, he smells the air, and it brings the promise of rain but now it reminds him of something else, too, and he wishes it didn't.

As it turns out, she is not the reason for the weather, which she demonstrates by climbing up a few minutes after her does. And his presence doesn't deter her: She makes a beeline for him instead of staying on her own side of the goddamn roof. She wears a thick-knitted sweater and faded jeans that could have belonged to an ex-boyfriend, if she has ever even had one. Somehow, the word "boyfriend" doesn't fit with someone like her; too juvenile, too simple.

She is barefoot and carries two mugs, looking every bit the truce-offering, non-storm-conjuring woman.

"Four sugars?" she says a little dryly, offering one to him. He "hmph"s and that is all that passes between them, verbally.

They must be out there twenty minutes before anything happens, and that's only distant thunder rolling. The coffee is gone but she still holds her cup between her hands, watching the sky with remarkable patience beside him, considering that she's used to causing this in a matter of seconds.

Eventually it begins to rain, and then suddenly it's pouring so hard he can hardly see in front of him. In this state of vulnerability, he tenses at a hand on his shoulder. It's only her, of course, and he tries to see the expression on her brown oval of a face-tries to figure out if her touch is supposed to be a comfort or an invitation.

Whatever the intention, her fingers send a feeling like static from his shoulder up his neck, only it's almost pleasant and it causes him to straighten a little. Apparently she feels it, too, and her hand retreats. Quickly.

He sighs, a sound which is rougher than it should be, and scoots a little closer, putting an awkward hand at her back. Even through the rain he can make out her smile at his effort. The rain falls lighter around him, and soon they are staring out at a surrounding curtain of water. It's a surreal feeling marred only by the occasional raindrop slipping through their protection.

They've both gone through harder in their lives. They can deal with this.

* * *

She lives in the sky; he is the most primal part of the earth. Their edges meet, scraping and sliding against each other. Sparks flare.

* * *

In other words, shit happens.

* * *

It is a month later and there is no storm to reassure them, to shelter them from temptation of the flesh. There are only fresh battle scars and the knowledge that, just down the hall, she's there like she's always been - smelling like rain with gentle lightning on her skin - on her lips, maybe. It hurts, it truly fucking does.

What else can he do, but go to her?

Knocking would feel ridiculous and he can't bring himself to do it. Instead, he lets the door creak loudly as he opens it, to give her - he doesn't know. Warning, maybe? In case she's asleep?

She isn't. She's reading by bedside lamp, and her eyes are guarded as he enters. She must know what he's here for, but she gets up cautiously, defensively, and holds up her hands as though trying to reason with him.

It takes four strides across the room to get where she's standing by the bed, and then it all disappears with his mouth on hers, and her hands snake across his back, her legs around his. He pushes her back, tugs urgently at her clothes, presses lips and teeth to her neck, trailing lipstick transferred from her mouth to his.

Works his fingers through his hair like he imagined, looked into her eyes from inches away. Thinks of all the adjectives for them that he could once before, back when she was only beautiful and not desirable. Wonders if this is a mistake.

But he doesn't get a chance to elaborate on these fears, because things take a different turn after that: The light makes a fizzling sound and dies even though neither of them goes to turn it off (he thinks, wryly and too late, of a clever quip about her blowing a circuit); she maneuvers her body so that she is over him, above her palm against his jaw and her fingers traveling his cheek. Rain. Static. Lightning. He inhales, and there's a difference between friends and lovers but hell if he can remember what it is and they were never really that close, anyway.

Reason leaves him.

As it turns out, he was wrong. She loses none of her regalia in these shared, precious few moments of passion - although, to be fair, she did gain the upper hand at some point. The planes of her face are illuminated by shadow; her face does not contort in pleasure, but rather heightens in its serenity.

Then again, he can't think straight himself, right now, so he might not be making any sense.

* * *

She falls asleep but he can't afford to, so he watches the lazy drizzling outside, too far to see the fat drops leaving their imprints as they slide down the windows.

He realizes that his arm is wrapped around her and removes it, feeling spooked.

And then he pauses.

Because after all the buildup, after all that time, he is able to think clearly. He has the answer to a question he never realized he'd been asking.

So he's not in love with her. She is, in fact his friend; his friend who is still beautiful, still tolerable, still (bless her friggin' heart) remembers how he takes his coffee and, as it turns out, is pretty incredible in bed.

Interestingly enough, friendship suddenly means a lot more to him than he ever thought.

Locked doors don't mean a whole lot around here, and he really should get back to his own room before daybreak, but he shuts his eyes and puts his arm back where it was, instead. Complications be damned; he has, after all, just dismissed the biggest one possible.

* * *

She wakes him with her shifting limbs at the crack of dawn and he recognizes her fury more by her taut movements and the tight set of her jaw than anything else.

"You should have gone last night - shouldn't have been here at all," she says as she slides on her robe, and he can tell that she's just as pissed at herself as she is at him.

Sympathy doesn't stop him from retorting, acid in his voice, that she needed to get laid anyway. Her only response to that is one (skeptical and unamused) raised eyebrow before she leaves the room, shutting the door behind her.

It is only at that point that he allows himself to smirk. Maybe her skin can be gotten under, after all.

It makes him wonder how she'll react once he asks if she wants to do this again, some time.

* * *

It happens at regular intervals, never with any forewarning or even knocking at the door. Just insistence and pressure and very temporary relief of baggage they never realize they're carrying.

It's easy to make light of, now, but as they watch their younger counterparts experience the emotional roller coasters of their love lives, he begins to wonder if there is not some amount of cynicism to their routine. Considering that she's the professor's disciple, in a manner of speaking, he's always associated her with idealism, but she's given up a lot, too, to be here. She can't be more than thirty, but he's not sure if she even considers that falling in love is still an option for her.

He knows that they're not in love, and it's a good thing, but he still wonders if their want of each other is something deeper than lust. He tries to think of a good substitute for the word "loneliness" because he hates the taste of it.

She passes him a mug and they watch the world change, take their places is in it from their spots in sky and primal earth. They share something, and he almost figures out what it is before he dismisses it as sex and coffee. He knows better, now, that to think that deeply.

* * *

_Author's Notes: I grew up part of the X-Men: Evolution generation as far as X-Men cartoons go, and since my favorite character was always Storm I tended to be pretty pissed that she got cast as one of the adults and never got any plots revolving around her. I believe I was reflecting on this fact when the idea for this story popped into my head, and I can't remember exactly what the thought process was that led up to it but I know that for a split second I was like, "Psh. That is so stupid. The only thing those two had in common was that they made up half the adult population in that place."_

_And then the thought directly following that was: "WAIT THAT MAKES PERFECT SENSE."_

_So this was initially supposed to just be a diplomatic elaboration of the indisputable fact that Logan and Ororo had periodic bouts of sexytime in between kicking ass and sitting in the background in favor of a bunch of dumbass kids, but I forgot all about it for a really long time, and by the time I sat down to write this all I could remember about the premise was "Ororo. Logan. Sexytime." So, because I guess it's basically my default fanfic-writing mechanism, I added some internal struggle and angst where there didn't need to be any (to the point that for a time I was debating adding the little "sky earth edges sparks blah blah" bit before the rooftop scene and just ending it there, never letting them consummate and making them DEAL WITH IT BWA HA HA. But I thought that was anti-climactic so I wrote the sexytime scene and decided not to toss it)._

_Ahem, anyway, by the time I remembered the whole initial idea I was pretty much done with it and too lazy to change anything. . _

_(I don't know why all my damn author's notes are so long, but I can't bring myself to shorten them any because they all seem so relevant in my head. So I apologize if you read all that and my only explanation is that I guess I'm just a self-important prick. But I love you for having clicked on this story at all, and that's all that really matters, right?)_


End file.
